CHAP. 179.--An ACT to provide for keeping open and unobstructed by fixed fishing devices continuous passages or ways to permit fish from the ocean and the waters of the Chesapeake bay to ascend the rivers of the State to the localities in which shad de...

1. Be it enacted by the general assembly of Virginia, That for the protection of fish and in order to permit them to reach the localities in the rivers of the State in which shad deposit their spawn, the commission of fisheries is directed to designate, define or have marked by suitable buoys or stakes, whenever said buoys or stakes may be advisable, continuous passages or ways from the ocean, through the waters of the Chesapeake bay, to and up the rivers of the State through said spawning localities, which said passages or ways are to be kept open and unobstructed by any fixed fishing devices; and the said commission is further directed to designate, define or have marked by suitable buoys or stakes the said spawning localities in said rivers.

The said passages or ways from the deep waters of the Chesapeake bay to the mouth of any river shall be at least one-half as wide as the mouth of said river, and in said rivers said passages or ways at the narrowest point of said rivers shall be at least half the width of the said rivers at those points.

The said commission before designating, defining or marking said passages or ways and said spawning areas, shall hold meetings at convenient places in tidewater Virginia for the purpose of hearing and considering all interests which may be affected by the action of said commission under the authority hereby conferred. The time and place of said meetings shall be properly advertised, and the conclusions of the said commission in designating, defining or marking said passages or ways and said spawning localities shall be published and placed in the hands of the various oyster inspectors for distribution.

2. After the first day of January, nineteen hundred and seventeen, it shall be unlawful to fish with any fixed device in any of the passages or ways which shall have been designated, defined or marked as hereinbefore provided, and it shall also be unlawful to fish during the spawning season with any haul seine over three hundred feet in length in any of the spawning localities which shall have been designated, defined or marked as hereinbefore provided. Any person violating either provision of this act shall be fined not less than twenty-five nor more than one hundred dollars, or confined in jail not less than ten days nor more than six months, and any net or seine used in violating either of the provisions of this act shall be forfeited to the State. It shall be the duty of all oyster inspectors and oyster police to report any violations of the provisions of this act to the commission of fisheries, whereupon the said commission or its chairman or secretary shall cause some one of the oyster police officials to take up and remove any such net or fixed fishing device and send the same and account for the proceeds of sale in accordance with the provisions of sub-section three of section twenty hundred and eighty-six of the Code of Virginia as amended.